I have had this thought running through my head and wondered what your thoughts were on it. Can a book, a story I should say, be written without an antagonist or antagonistic theme? I have an idea to write a story which takes place in the Judeo-Christian heaven which would not contain, necessarily, any antagonists.
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A story without an "antagonistic theme" is a story with "no conflict." Conflict drives plot. Without plot, you have a character study. Without conflict, the character has no reason to change, grow, or develop, so there's not much to study. What in heaven's name (pun intended) could you write about without any conflict occurring? |
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I absolutely think it's possible for a novel to be written without an antagonist. So long as it's entertaining, enlightening, and the characters grow and change, then there doesn't need to be a "bad guy"... but I agree about conflict. Your characters must face and deal with/overcome obstacles for the plot to be interesting to /most/ readers. Take children's literature and/or picture books as an example. Sure there are a lot of differences between novels for adults and stories for children, but that may be a place to start your research. A lot of books for small children don't have an antagonist. The situation becomes the "antagonist" or the obstacle to be overcome. |
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Westerners, esp. movie goers, are conditioned to expect certain elements in a story eg protagonist antagonist etc. A goal must be set and the goals impeded somehow by an antagonistic force, whether darth vader or the weather in " a perfect storm". If there is no antatgonist, the story can still "exist" or "be written", but it may not be appreciated. I accept a Short Story(eg 7 minute play) and poetry for example dont necessarily have time for a hero's journey and may not need an "antagonist" and they can still be "good" because they reflect on the depth of an issue rather than "plot". But if you want to engage an audience for 2 hours and be liked (story/movie/novel), you'll need a goal and impedance, and audience to root for the hero. The tried and tru structures work. change them after ytou ahve mastered them. As a corollary any person can record music in their garagae, but whether 900/1000 will want to listen to it is another thing. |
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Isn't there conflict in every story? If there's no conflict, there's no interest for the reader...what a boring story it would be! As far as an antagonist goes, I agree that it could play the part of anyone or anything, internally or externally, but there is almost always an antagonist to create conflict. By simple definition, it's that someone or something that opposes the protagonist or hero, which I think could extend to natural disasters, internal conflicts like drug addiction or depression, and divine intervention. |
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All fiction must have conflict, but that conflict certainly doesn't have to spring from the existence of a personified antagonist. There's man-against-nature (e.g., any survival story), man-against-himself (any kind of addiction-recovery story), and even conflicting protagonists (i.e., two characters have incompatible goals and struggle to defeat each other but reader isn't invited to root for one over the other). Even in traditional man-against-man stories, sometimes the enemy doesn't exist as a character, the protagonist is struggling against the villain's malign influence. There are even weirder cases. In the Sherlock Holmes short story, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, there's no antagonist, no villain, and no crime, although I don't think Conan Doyle could have stretched it out for a whole novel without enraging his readers. Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Rendezvous With Rama similarly lacks any kind of negative character (although you could argue it lacks a plot altogether). My wife is reading Eat, Pray, Love -- I bet there's no antagonist there, but I can't be troubled to check. An interesting example from the movies (it's much easier to talk about movie plots because they are so much simpler and because there are so fewer movies made then novels, most people have seen most popular movies): The Fifth Protocol has a clear and heroic hero (Dallas) and a clear and villainous villain (Zorg) but the two never meet and are never aware of each others' existence. They are in the same scene, once, but Bruce Willis walks out of frame before Gary Oldman walks in. |
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Theoretically, it's possible as long as you replace the lack of antagonism with an inner conflict in the protagonist. |
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Certainly stories can be written without a "traditional" antagonist. An example that popped to mind was Daniel Abraham's The Curandero and the Swede: A Tale from the 1001 American Nights; this story meanders between fable-like stories, all basically dealing with how people cope with the troubles life sends their way. But really, I've seen lots of no-antagonist stories. The trick is to find out what is interesting in the story, if it isn't overt conflict. Sometimes it's a character portrait; sometimes it's an intriguing situation; perhaps a personal experience. Sometimes it'll be a unique literary experimentation. (In general, short fiction seems a better match for this than a novel - it doesn't need to be as compelling or as plot-driven, and you can mess around with format more because it doesn't need to hold up very long.) "Angels in heaven," for example, isn't a story yet - it is, perhaps, a setting. An angel ruminating on the nature of sin and of providence might be spun into an intriguing short piece; or angels trying to learn to see the world through mortal eyes - you've got movement, development, and story even without an antagonist. But "angels sitting around all day praising the Lord" would be rather dull, whereas "angels fighting demons and bringing justice to Sodom" would be lively, but have clear antagonists. Edited to add: here's a few short stories I can readily link to which I'd describe as not revolving around antagonism:
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Why no conflict in heaven? There are a number of accounts of war in Heaven in both Jewish and Christian literature. "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven." -- Rev. 12:7-8 But the conflict need not be so visceral. Perhaps the conflict lies in the difference between the expectations of the newly arrived and the reality(?) of the Heavenly circumstances. |
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Yes, a book can work without an antagonist. For example, in "end of the world" disasters, the source of friction often comes from the disaster, and not an antagonist. (To use an example, while not a book but a film, think "Armageddon" as exhibit A.) Romance novels often don't have antagonists, either. The conflict could also come from inner conflict, such as drug addiction. Can a book exist without any friction (which is what I assume you mean by no "antagonistic theme")? Possibly, but I can't imagine it would be an exciting read; it may depend on the audience. Perhaps someone has an example of a book like that, but I can't think of any. |
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